I was pretty surprised to find out that I was on the cover of the Vancouver Courier – that never really came up when we were shooting the photos.

Overview of the Hastings Park Empire Fields pumptrack.

The Vancouver Dirt Jump Coalition launched our second bike facility at Hastings Park in Vancouver this past weekend. I’m really proud of this one because it really caters to riders of all ages and abilities; dirt jumps have a little steeper learning curve than a pumptrack, so this really opens it up to everybody. This being a pump track, it requires less maintenance as it doesn’t take the same kind of abuse that dirt jumps like we launched in 2010 in Vanier Park.

A rider cruises around the lower berm to build speed to get back up to the top of the track.

It was determined after several meetings with different users that dirt jumps at this location wasn’t going to be the best fit. Given the large open space where they’d be much more exposed to the sun and rain, which means the jumps would break down much faster if they’re just baking in the sun without proper water systems and an existing community in place to maintain the jumps over time.

The BC Chapter of the Graphic Designers of Canada interviewed me recently after I became a CGD™ certified member. I recently made it a priority to get more involved in this professional organization after being heavily involved in volunteering in my other passion, BMX biking.

For over 15 years I’ve been involved in groups like the Vancouver Skateboard Coalition and Vancouver Dirt Jumping Coalition to help get public skateparks and dirt jumps built in the Lower Mainland for all users. It’s time for me to give back to my profession. I started volunteering at GDC events, and have been getting involved with other design related organizations and events, such as the relatively new Creative Pulse group — check the link for their Facebook page and keep up to date with their events.

One of the larger projects I highlighted was the Tugboat Group website redesign; it’s a major upgrade to a website with lofty goals. The website had been through many iterations of concepts, but kept getting pushed to the back-burner, as these things do at a studio that’s too busy with client work to find time for its own needs. The site had been roughed into place by a few junior designers, but I was tasked with finishing it.

The Jamieson-Hilts Insurance Brokers rebrand started with an analysis of the business, and how it is evolving. From there, a new identity was designed including a stationery package, storefront signage, directory listings, magazine ads, and a new website.

I also included a photo I shot early one morning while out camping by canoe. It was a beautiful still morning on the lake with herons squawking away in the distance. I shoot lots of photos when I’m out on adventures and this one hangs on my living room wall.

That’s me standing in Windset Farms’ cucumber greenhouse while on a tour of the facilities in Santa Maria, California — sporting the latest greenhouse fashion…

Here’s a little rundown of What I’ve Been Up to in the last few months… Since Instagram and Twitter have pretty much knocked my iPhone Photo Dump series out of commission, I want to bring back some form of a journal… Something I can look back at to see what I was doing and/or working on at that time. I shoot a ton of photos every month and barely any of them see the light of day, so I want to start sharing more of them out whether it be here, or maybe fire them over to my Tumblr page.

VANCOUVER AQUARIUM EXPANSION GRAND OPENING | Katie and I went to the Vancouver Aquarium’s expansion grand opening party the night before we left for California. The new entrance with the high-tech 360° wrap around video screens is pretty wild; all the new stuff looks great. We also took in the Planet Earth: Shallow Seas 4-D Experience, which is very well done. I won’t spoil how awesome the 4-D experience is, but I will say it’s better than the ‘Bugs Life’ one at Disneyland.

The Venice Beach canals — what a great, quiet place to stay in the LA area.

We made the trip down to Los Angeles in mid-June for my good friend’s wedding; Jonathan and Wendy were getting hitched and we weren’t going to miss it for the world. We planned a vacation around their wedding; staying in Venice Beach where it would be central to where we’d be going. From Venice, we’d head up the coast through Big Sur and then fly out of San Francisco. A relaxing vacation with lots of beach time, then driving up the coast was exactly what Katie and I needed.

In Venice we stayed just off the famous canals at an apartment we found on Airbnb (here’s the place we actually stayed at). It’s a great place, and we’d definitely stay there again. We spent the week lounging on the beach, meeting up with friends, and hitting a few amazing restaurants while we were there.

So many beautiful colour combinations… This is one of the first sets of doors that I photographed.

In my last post; our honeymoon in Nicaragua, I mentioned that I wanted to put together a post just about the colours of Nicaragua. Everywhere that we went in Nica, no matter how nice or how poor the neighbourhood, the buildings were beautifully painted bright colours, often with crazy colour combinations. I was kidding that when it comes time to paint the house, the husband goes out and grabs his choice for a colour, then the wife goes out and gets her choice without ever speaking to one another. Then they bust out the brushes and go for it. It really does look like that’s what happens here for about 30% of the houses. Bright green and pink? Bright orange and red? Teal and yellow? Maybe mint and yellow? Hey, why not — it won’t look any crazier than the building next door…

This set of buildings in Granada were part of a beautifully coloured market and restaurant district.

San Juan del Sur is a beautiful little surf town… Looking down the main beach.

We stayed at Casa Santosha, part of a yoga/surf community in the hills a couple kilometres up the road from San Juan del Sur. It’s run by Heidi, a fantastic host, sharing her home with us, cooking us a few delicious meals, taking us out to a couple different beaches with surfing lessons, and setting us up with lots of activities and tours of the area. Armed with a little less Spanish than we should have had, we did pretty good at learning on the fly, or having our rough translations down in our pocket book. The people of Nicaragua were very friendly with our broken Spanish, and we were always able to figure out what we needed to do. Continue reading “Honeymoon in Nicaragua” »

To say this was a magical day would be a huge understatement. Perfect location, perfect weather, and lots of family and friends were there to celebrate with us.

Katie and I got married last weekend just outside of Saint John, New Brunswick at Katie’s family cottage, called ‘Minote’ (pronounced min-o-ta; which means ‘happy thought’). Minote has been in Katie’s family for several generations, and has been around since 1905 where it served as a party spot for a couple of bachelor brothers. If you want to learn more about Minote, you can see some some more of it’s history here. It’s Katie’s favourite place in the world, and we just knew we had to have the wedding here. We convinced her dad that it would be worth all the work to host such a large gathering… And it all worked out perfectly.

This part of the cabin was built in 1905, so you can almost smell the all those years in this photo.

It was an absolutely perfect, hot August day with barely a cloud in the sky. We had exactly the wedding we wanted, and it’s exactly where we wanted it. I proposed to Katie on the bridge you see in the background of the first photo — since it’s her favourite place in the world, that was a pretty easy choice as to where I was going to ask her. I had to wait until we were in New Brunswick to ask… I popped the question a few days after we were back east for her brother’s wedding back in 2010. Continue reading “Katie and I got married!” »

Downside table transfer from quarter to quarter at the Woodyard. Photo by Ken Paul.

Ken Paul came out to the Woodyard one night and had his camera out, so we shot a few photos. The above is one that turned out pretty awesome and I’m super stoked on. This is one of my favourite lines to hit at the Woodyard, transferring from the small quarter behind me onto the 8 foot quarter — a killer speed line that sets you up to boost over the big box jump to the 9 foot quarterpipe.